Cheap and Cheerful

Cheap and Cheerful

Consider Erin Flett the Goldilocks of southern Maine. For more than a year, the fabric designer and her carpenter husband, Maslen, scoured the region for a house that would suit their growing family. Some were too big; others, too small. It wasn't until the Fletts came across, of all things, a former group home for children in Gorham, Maine, that Erin's pulse quickened. "It had brown industrial carpet," she recalls, "but it was just right!"

Living Room

Living Room

Erin started by replacing the dingy carpeting with light maple flooring and covering the common-area walls with sand-colored paint (Malibu Dune by Pittsburgh Paints). Then she brought in creamy white sofas and armchairs for the living room and an early-19th-century pine hutch in the dining room. On this neutral backdrop, Erin splashes colorful vintage pieces as well as bold and boisterous pillows—pink bunnies, green squirrels, orange flowers—of her own creation.